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French Freedom of Speech

The mayor of Calais is suing Marine Le Pen of the Front National for saying "repeatedly" that citizens in Calais need a pass issued by the mayor to get to their own homes (because of the number of migrants in the town). In fact, the passes are issued by the police prefecture.

Who's en colère today?

The SNCF (toujours eux), regional train employees in the Lyons area guaranteeing unpleasant travel from the 17th-21st December
Also yet another strike by Sud-Rail, a particularly truculent SNCF union in the south of France, this time five days in January: 6,7, 21, 22 and 23. "We have no choice." Right.

Sedulia's Sites

Armistice Day, 2011: the Great War Museum (Musée de la Grande Guerre) opens in Meaux

Nine million people died, twenty million were wounded, seventy million people were involved in the Great War, most of which was fought on French soil. France lost ten percent of its population. One million men died at Verdun. Lest we forget.

Update. A new World War museum, the Musée de la Grande Guerre, has just opened in the town of Meaux, an hour's drive east of Paris (close to Paris Disneyland). It comes from the large collection of a single man, Jean Pierre Verney, who became interested in the war back in the 1960s, when World War I artefacts were cheap. The collection was eventually bought by the government for 600,000 euros-- far less than it is worth; a foreign museum had offered 2,000,000 euros, but Verney wanted to keep it in France-- with the proviso that a museum would be built to house it. The museum opened on November 11, 2011 (11-11-11). According to the Parisien, the largest display window shows American troops.

As usual the intellos rushed to get their digs in. World War I historian Annette Becker called Mr Verney a handyman who collected bric-à-brac. Le Monde complained that the museum was old-fashioned, "a museographic curiosity that one would have thought was now in the past" (it has scenes with mannequins and trenches, dioramas and real uniforms), and "is this the best way to show the horror of war?" The writer did not propose another way: possibly he thinks everyone should just read a book.

Elaine Sciolino in ParisOf the N.Y. Times (or as it prefers to be known, The N.Y. Times) and writer of La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life

Le Franco PhoneyA long-term Australian expat in a French ski resort. I can't believe it took me so long to discover this one.

The Compleat AngloI have to like a blog that is named The Compleat Anglo. An Englishman married to his Madame, in the Basque country

Flipflop France23-year-old Sasha, an Oregonian from Forks (town made famous by the Twilight vampire saga), has settled down in France's second city, Lyons. [No that isn't a mistake. I spell it the old-fashioned English way.]